Album: Lone Wolf – ‘Lodge’

Take my advice – whisky, dark, headphones, a spare 45 minutes.” Not many albums come with guidelines on how to best to consume them, but Paul Marshall’s tweeted instructions are well worth following when it comes to setting the mood for his new work Lodge. Whisky helps most things of course, but to become fully immersed in the elegant, introspective angst of the Lone Wolf world, nocturnal isolation is pretty essential too. Add in stormy weather, heartbreak and some good old fashioned self-loathing and you’ve really got yourself a party.

Always something of a reluctant rock star, Marshall first arrived as a finger-picking, melancholy, Nick Drake-type in 2007, but later expanded his vision and assumed the Lone Wolf alias for acclaimed albums The Devil and I (2010) and The Lovers (2012). A deluge of critical adulation and the endorsements of Richard Thompson, Radiohead and Wild Beasts further enhanced his mystique, and his sound grew into haunting avant-pop soundscapes rendered with sparse R&B croons, sullen orchestral touches and dark, weary murder ballads. He quickly slipped from view though, often portrayed as a lost soul, underappreciated and overlooked by wider audiences and weighed down by heavy anxieties.

It appeared that would be the last we heard of the Leeds troubadour after he left cult label Bella Union, but the impending closure of The Lodge studio in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, a converted barn where he has long recorded, has brought him out of reclusion. His relationship with the studio and its setting in the blustery, isolated coastal town has been one of solace and inspiration over the years, and it’s been vital in helping him to pour his woes into this folky Dark Knight character and the brooding, desolate songs. With the promise that this is the final outing of the Lone Wolf alter-ego, Lodge acts as a break-up letter to his old muse with Marshall content to conclude the journey.

From the opening muted trumpet wails of ‘Wilderness’, Marshall’s piano laments are elevated into grandiose, chamber folk as his personal insecurities become universal battles of alienation. It feels cinematic as ‘Alligator’ murmurs away in angelic jazz atmospherics whilst Marshall’s wilting falsetto starts to snarl and the blood begins to boil on ‘Mistakes’ – “I make mistakes/I think I’m making one right now”. Other stand out moments include the cry for help on the gorgeous ‘Crimes’ and the doomed torch song ‘Art of Letting Go’ as Marshall bonds together an admiration for modern soul stars like Frank Ocean with the fragile, ethereal, outsiderness of Antony and the Johnsons and the stalking, symphonic gloom of the soundtrack to Taxi Driver.

It’s an album that unwinds as a whole not merely disparate individual tracks, and charts Marshall on a healing process. He lays himself bare, and at times you want to give the man a hug whilst at others you feel the need to grab him, slap him round the chops and tell him “pull yourself together man”. By the end of it though he has shed some of the arch miserablism and seems to have created a distinct form of shadowy, English soul music full of noir pop harmonies and pained, devastating confessionals. It’s a startling piece of work that marks Marshall’s growth from cult crooner into one of the UK’s most striking and beguiling songwriters – and that’s not just the whisky talking.

 

Kevin Irwin
@TrotterFist

Photo Credit: Danny North

Mari Lane

Mari Lane

Editor, London. Likes: Kathleen Hanna, 6Music, live music in the sunshine. Dislikes: Sexism, pineapples, the misuse of apostrophes.